Diversity among board directors and officers: exploratory estimates on family, work and income

This study provides the first socioeconomic profile of women board directors and officers in Canada from an intersectional lens. Linking data from the Corporations Returns Act with those from the 2016 Census, exploratory estimates are presented. The study analyzes disparities in family, work and income characteristics, mainly by gender and visible minority status. Further, it informs on the types of businesses in which diverse women executives contribute to corporate governance and strategic decision making. Despite decades of gains in the workplace, women and equity-deserving groups continue to be under-represented in leadership and decision making positions, that is: (1) fewer women in top decision making roles; (2) visible minority women outnumbered in executive positions, while very few Indigenous women identified in the estimates; (3) visible minority women executives were younger, more educated and more likely to have children than non visible minority women; (4) visible minority women five times more likely than non visible minority women to participate on American-controlled corporations; and (5) women executives earn about 56 per cent less than men executives.

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